The Other Percy Jackson
by Fiare
Summary: Camp Half-Blood has hosted one Percy Jackson... But two? Persephone Jackson is eloquent, suburban, and despises Hello Kitty. She possesses no extraordinary abilities (for a demigod, anyway). Her tale should be ordinary. However, the presence of another teenager, known solely as H73, catapults Percy's life into chaos... And maybe into the apocalypse.
1. Inexplicable Hello Kitty Sheets

Falls Church, Virginia

7:04 AM, May 12, 2012

_Percy_

The first thing I notice is the sunlight.

The second?

My usage of the word "thing".

I am not permitted to utilize such typical adolescent verbiage.

Anyway, returning to the sunlight. Its illumination of my room was practically voltaic, and that concerned me. Profoundly.

Oh.

Crap.

School had begun four minutes ago.

I was obviously not present at the school, at least not corporeally.

Yeah. A predicament.

There aren't any accurate descriptors for precisely how I exited my bed. Gravity played an enormous role. There was also excess pain involved. And I was almost strangled by my sheets. My Hello Kitty sheets.

I _hate _Hello Kitty.

I located a decent tank top, a plaid shirt, and jeans with, um, great alacrity. And agony. And excruciating pain. Did I mention it hurt?

I saw my reflection is the mirror, and realized-_Oh, CRAP- _my lack of makeup. I hastily applied some mascara, and hoped that it didn't look like my face was a canvas for a recent installation of abstract art.

Which it probably did. Damn you, Hello Kitty.

Not that Hello Kitty exerted any influence, supernatural or not, over my mascara.

Hopefully.

I retrieved my backpack, laced my hiking boots, and ran outside.

Fortunately, the hell that I attend was approximately half a mile from my house.

That's not to say that proceeding in my ever-so-organized fashion to Falls Church High School wasn't difficult.

There might have been an automobile accident (Or two. Or three.) that incidentally occurred due to me.

Oh, well.

I arrived at the institution for advanced learning with a sense of pervading foreboding. For a demure brick building, it was sort of ominous.

This was going to be a _fun _day.


	2. Nothing Explodes In This Chapter

Unspecified Gas Station, New Jersey

May 6, 2012 10: 41 AM

_Innocent Bystander/ Omniscient Narrator/Chuck_

The girl was gorgeous, if not for the mud that had been doused on her a few hours prior. Her brunette pixie cut, violently slashed by a streak of crimson hair color, was stiff with now caked-on earthen substances. Her rugged Germanic features were accented by storm-burnt eyes.

She appeared to be furious.

Actually, she was.

"Honestly," she muttered, "Who the HELL doesn't let someone buy something because they don't have three cents?!"

Apparently, she was not in possession of three additional cents.

She wasn't placated by this revelation. Instead, she raged across the parking lot, oblivious to the puddles of silt-saturated water that, once gravity-bound, now decorated her combat boots.

It was approximately now, halfway across the derelict parking lot, that a curious expression altered her features. It was the expression of someone who has been the recipient of a randomly generated brilliant idea.

That was when the previously dormant clouds began to roil above her.

An unnatural, eldritch light flickered in her eyes.

_Screw this, _she thought.

She looked absolutely delighted at the prospect.


	3. Chiron Ponders Archery

Archery Range, Camp Half-Blood, New York

May 6, 2012, 10:41 AM

_Omniscient Narrator_

Chiron was not happy. Nor was he euphoric, ecstatic, elated, or pleased.

Or any other word that could even be considered vaguely synonymous.

He wasn't certain what incensed him so- it wasn't _tangible, _persay. A prickle of discomfort, clouds arranged in a brooding atlas on the horizon, spoiled strawberries, construction difficulties…

He had postulated that some archery would relieve him of the constant torment. However, a stray arrow (an _explosive _stray arrow) had obliterated his original target, and the destruction of a second wouldn't improve anything.

So he contemplated as he gazed at the horizon. There had been no fatal injuries, no deceased campers recently… Nothing.

Literally, properly, absolutely nothing. Metaphorically nothing.

_My life is a void, and it has embittered my conscience, _he hazarded.

It was a possibility.

He sniffed the air, a rare primal, animalistic gesture for him.

A fragmented prophecy, half listened to in a dream, permeated even the deepest layers of his mind.

_Forked lighting gathers…_

_The blade shall reap once again… _

_Persephone… Persephone… Persephone…_

_Commanded battles once flayed and slain…._

_Persephone…_

_Clarity twinned with darkness….._

These shards of memory were meaningless to the ancient being.

On the air, he scented ozone and lightning, raw waves and fire, storm and deserts chafing with sand.

The turn of the universe and of the world.

Chiron's rage plummeted into another emotion.

For the first time in three centuries, Chiron experienced mortal fear.

The archery range was disturbingly silent.

And then there was an explosion.


	4. Encountering Confirmed Demigods, At Last

Apollo Cabin, Camp Half-Blood, New York

May 6, 2012, 10:42 AM

_Kevin_

When there's an explosion here, it's always some Hermes guys playing a prank, or Aphrodite girls burning up their cabin with perfume. Stupid stuff like that. Normal camp stuff. Maybe the Hephaestus cabin is testing something. When something explodes, maybe I'll look around, make sure nobody's dead or dying, (cuz that means paperwork) and go back to listening to classic rock. Or shooting things. Or something.

But this explosion was big. Like, weirdly huge. Camp has lava walls, so I'm pretty used to stuff being... Weird. When I heard it, I felt the ground shake, too. Like an earthquake, almost. And when it's an earthquake, people freak out. And run. And die. And the paperwork, again.

Also, the fireball outside my window was a hint that shit was happening. Small hint, yeah, but a hint. Hephaestus tests stuff far away from campers, if they can.

Anyway, I ran outside, which I realized was pretty dumb.

_One does not simply walk into _a flaming ball of fire. Stupid Kevin.

The flaming ball of fire had sort of gone into smoke by now, so it wasn't like burning alive, but more like walking through fog. Ashy fog. Through the smoke, a bunch of girls were screaming on the left side of my cabin, and I could hear that the guys were mostly swearing.

By now, I knew this wasn't accidental shit. This was real shit. As if huge fireballs are accidental. Well, camp. Whatever.

There was smoke everywhere. It wasn't just the Apollo cabin, so it wasn't like that asshole Riley had pissed off Hermes again. But I still didn't think that it was a big deal. Accidental explosion, maybe prank that screwed up, but nothing, you know, _big.  
_

Coughing, I ran over to the screaming girls. See, I have this friend named Jenny, and I didn't want her dead. For a demigod, she's sort of weak, but it's not her fault that her family thought she was a demon.

One of the people looked like her through the smoke. Not like I could tell. So I went over to the girls who had been screaming.

With my luck, Jenny _wasn't _there.

There were four campers, an older black girl with braided hair, and three younger ones. Maybe twelve or something. One was crying.

"Guys," I asked, "Where's Jenny?"

One of the girls spoke up, the older girl. From her necklace, she'd been at camp for a while. Three, maybe four years. I couldn't really tell. The kids' screaming had mostly stopped by now.

"She's over at the lake."

So not near the explosion. The lake was sort of far away.

That's about when I realized that the girls weren't Aphrodite chicks, as I'd first thought. They were Hephaestus. And if they were Hephaestus…They could tell me what was really important.

"Where did the fireball come from?"

Hephaestus people would know the trajectory.

The girl who had first talked to me said, "The explosion originated at the archery range."

"Was anyone there?"

Jenny wouldn't be there, but I needed to know if anyone else was hurt by the explosion. Or dead.

She shook her head, and quietly said, "I don't know."


End file.
